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Formula 1 McLaren Red Bull Racing Renault

2011 Australian Grand Prix – Post-race press conference

2011 Australian Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel capped off a dominant qualifying display with a matching performance in the main race today. Put simply, the Red Bull driver was unstoppable.

Perhaps the most telling demonstration of this lies in the tale of the pit stops, where Vettel required just two stops compared to his teammate, Mark Webber, who munched his way through four sets of the new Pirelli rubber. Off the pace and one extra stop left the hometown hero falling well short of expectations back in fifth place.

Lewis Hamilton finished where he started, which is to say he put in a strong performance and brought his McLaren home in a comfortable second place. This despite a broken undertray which must have caused instability through corners.

Coming home in third was a super impressive Vitaly Petrov in the Lotus Renault GP machine. In many ways the Russian had the quietest race of all, nestled in between his more fancied rivals. It was a great effort and it’s also the first time we’ve seen a Russian on the podium in Formula One.

In breaking news the strong debut performance from Mexico’s Sergio Perez has been thrown into chaos following a decision to disqualify both Sauber C30s for a technical infringement concerning their rear wings. Perez and teammate Kamui Kobayashi finished the race in seventh and eighth places respectively. Perez needing just one tyre stop.

The full transcript from the post-race press conference featuring the first three men can be read after the break.

[Pic: Red Bull Racing/Getty Images]

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Formula 1 McLaren Red Bull Racing

2011 Australian Grand Prix – Post-qualifying press conference

Mark Webber

A sublime qualifying performance from Sebastian Vettel has left Mark Webber bewildered ahead of the 2011 Australian Grand Prix. The Red Bull Racing duo were expected to close out the front row, but McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton had other ideas splitting the pair on the way to second on the grid.

Vettel’s lap time of 1m 23.529s is the fastest ever lap around Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit. It was also a staggering eight tenths quicker than the best Lewis Hamilton could muster (1m 24.307s). Meanwhile, Webber was close to Lewis, but not close enough in third (1m 24.395s).

The times posted by Red Bull Racing are cloaked with intrigue after it was revealed neither driver had used KERS at all during qualifying. Webber added to the mystery when he stated, “We didn’t run it [KERS] today for reasons we will keep in the team.”

You can read the full transcript from the post-qualifying press conference featuring all three drivers after the break.

[Pic: Red Bull Racing/Getty Images]

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Formula 1 MINI Motorsports

Nowhere man – part 2

2002 MINI Celebrity Challenge

In the second part of our “Nowhere man” special you’ll read all about Tom’s on-track action, after he was given the chance to share the limelight with the celebrities at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix.

Day six—qualifying

We watch the F1 cars do their qualifying sessions and have lunch with the celebs at the BMW facility. We get a great pit walk, seeing all the F1 cars up close, as well as the absolute extravagance of the teams. The weather is not good all day and the F1 cars have a tough time in their sessions. I am pretty happy, as my third place is fine, but the thought of trying to go fast in the wet is making us all very nervous. Geoff Brabham informs us in the briefing that we’re going onto the track no matter what the conditions.

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Formula 1 MINI Motorsports

Nowhere man – part 1

2002 MINI Celebrity Challenge

In the build up to tomorrow’s Grand Prix here is a tale that will warm the hearts of most readers. It tells of the chance given to a regular guy, called Tom Browell, to participate in the celebrity race at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix. It’s a long piece so it’s been split it into two parts. It’s a lot of fun, though and definitely worth reading…

My fifteen minutes of fame begins

I arrived home on Sunday (17th February) to find an unusual message on the answering machine left by “Sherryn from Qantas corporate marketing”. I thought it was just someone doing a survey, but my wife Zoë asked if I had entered any contests. I remembered entering something on the Qantas web page, “To win a MINI, I think?” I called Sherryn back who said, “Do you remember entering a competition on the Qantas web site? You are one of five finalists.” I had to ask, “A finalist in what?” and Sherryn started to explain the prize: fly to Melbourne, participate in the MINI Celebrity Challenge driver training at Sandown raceway and maybe get picked for the celebrity race at the Australian Grand Prix. In any case, I’ll stay the week and go to the Grand Prix with corporate hospitality for two people. All the while, I’m giving Zoë the thumbs-up and she thinks I’ve won a new MINI.

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Formula 1 McLaren

Onboard with Jenson at Bathurst

Hats off to Vodafone Australia for releasing this on board footage on YouTube showcasing Jenson Button’s 1:48 lap around Mount Panorama last Tuesday. That’s a great lap time, of course, but how quick could a fully prepped F1 car go around the 6.2km track? It seems a widely held belief the four-year-old McLaren MP4-23 was running at about 85% of its full potential.

Button has said breaking 1:40 is achievable. That’s another 8 seconds cut from an already impressive time. We reckon there’s a full 10 seconds to be had though.

[Thanks to Al for the tip]

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Ferrari Video

Ferrari FF “Car” crash

Jethro Bovingdon, Car magazine journo, has shown the pitfalls of video reviewing. Well, actually, his editors have, perhaps, unkindly shared with the world the very painful moment where Bovingdon crashed into a kerb in a brand new Ferrari FF. Fortunately it was nothing too serious, and, really, a good way to promote the full review that Car will publish next week.

[Source: Car]

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Formula 1

A quick guide to Pirelli’s Formula One tyres

Pirelli F1 tyres

First filed 19 March.

Ahead of next this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix the sport’s new new tyre supplier Pirelli has announced it will use coloured labelling on the sidewalls to differentiate between its different tyres during the 2011 Formula One season.

At each Grand Prix four types of tyres will be available; wets, intermediates, primes and options. The prime and option tyres are slicks and will be nominated before every race from a range four different compounds; supersoft, soft, medium and hard.

For example, the first three Grands Prix this year—Australia, Malaysia and China—will use the hard compound for the prime tyres and the soft compound as the options.

A total of six colours will be used to tell each tyre apart:

  • Wet – orange
  • Intermediate – light blue
  • Supersoft – red
  • Soft – yellow
  • Medium – white
  • Hard – silver

To begin with Pirelli wants to have at least one full step between the prime and option tyres. Meaning teams would not have the choice between the supersoft and soft at the same race.

There’s a series of handy reference images below as well as Pirelli’s press release.

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News

AUSmotive hits the road

blurry lights

AUSmotive will be in go slow mode for the next few days while the editor enjoys some R&R in Melbourne. We should be back at full strength on Sunday and you can look forward to our Grand Prix galleries making a return for 2011.

Saturday will be AUSmotive’s third birthday, so a quiet nod and thank you to our readers for your support.

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Formula 1 Holden McLaren Motorsports

VIDEO: TeamVodafone Bathurst F1/V8 driver swap

Here’s a short film from TeamVodafone about yesterday’s F1/V8 driver swap at Bathurst. It’s a high quality production, too, so make sure you check it out.

[Source: Speedcafe]

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Lamborghini

Inside look at new Lamborghini Aventador TV ad

Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4

The chaps over at InsideLine were privileged to be invited along to the filming of a new ad piece for the brand spanking new Lamborghini Aventador. They’ve been kind enough to share some video with the world as well, which you can see after the break. Imagine mucking around on that dry lake bed with a fearsome 6.5 litre V12 and its 700hp of fury behind you. Bags not cleaning the car afterwards, though!

[Source: InsideLine]

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Mercedes-Benz

VIDEO: Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG coupé

Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG coupe

Mercedes-Benz has published a couple of videos to support the static release of pictures and press statement from earlier this week.

The first clip is pure marketing and not terribly exciting. The second plays on AMG’s relationship with Ducati. It’s better and has a nice early twist, but we’d still like less layers of marketing and more V8 rumble please.

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Formula 1 Holden McLaren Motorsports

Jenson Button & Craig Lowndes drive F1 car around Mount Panorama, Bathurst

F1 car at Bathurst

Today represented a once in a lifetime experience—the chance to witness a Formula One car lapping the legendary Mount Panorama circuit in Bathurst. It was a chance the AUSmotive Editor was unwilling to let slip.

Shortly after arriving at the track the 2008-spec McLaren MP4-23 showcar fired into life in its pit garage. It was a sign for me to go to the top of the mountain. The section from the Cutting to Forest Elbow is what makes Mount Panorama so special, and it was here I wanted to see the F1 car in anger.

The Esses proved to be one of the better vantage points and after a bit of a wait Jenson Button finally came out for a single installation lap. There was another slight delay of 10–15 minutes before he came back out to complete his flying laps. Button’s quickest time, recorded unofficially, was 1:48.3—some 18 seconds faster than the current V8 Supercar lap record, coincidentally held by Lowndes.

I felt the sensation of speed would be greater across the top of the Mountain at McPhillamy Park and moved there for the rest of the laps.

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